Today marks the 10th anniversary of a fight that, upon going in, plenty of people had a genuine concern for one of the fighters involved. For years, the great Bernard Hopkins had managed to defy Father Time, the Philly ring general scoring hugely impressive wins over much younger and more dangerous fighters like Kelly Pavlik, Jean Pascal, and Tavoris Cloud. But this time, in going in with “The Krusher,” the all-powerful Sergey Kovalev, Hopkins, amazingly the holder of two major belts at 175 pounds at age 49, was risking things.
Hopkins, who was 55-6-2 and coming off a decision win over Beibut Shumenov, would be pushing his skills and luck too far against the Russian beast.
Kovalev was 31 years of age at the time of the fight, and he was unbeaten at 25-0-1. Worryingly for Hopkins and his fans, Kovalev had run over his previous nine opponents while he had scored a KO in each of his fights as the WBO light-heavyweight champion. Kovalev was going to inflict some serious harm on the almost 50-year-old, so the thinking went in some quarters.
The fight, dubbed “Alien Vs. Krusher,” took place at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
With plenty of fans braced for something violent, we instead saw a one-sided fight that was largely devoid of action or violence. Kovalev dropped Hopkins in the opening round, this with a right hand to the head, and from here on in, Hopkins boxed ultra-cautiously, defensively, some would say scared. But Hopkins had to be smart, or else, and he was, but Kovalev dominated every minute of all 12 rounds.
Hopkins threw very little, his aging legs carrying him to safety in each session. In the end, Kovalev was denied the KO, but he triumphed by lopsided scores of 120-106, and 120-107, 120-107. Kovalev was now a three-belt world champion, and he had proven to the boxing world that Hopkins was very much human.
Hopkins had again dared to be great, but he somehow fell short on this occasion. But it didn’t/doesn’t matter; Hopkins had long since cemented his place in the history books. Hopkins could have gone out a winner, either after his win over Pascal, after his win over Cloud, or after his win over Shumenov. In the end, Hopkins did push his luck by facing Kovalev.
Amazingly, though, B-Hop still wasn’t done, with him having one more fight, this against Joe Smith Jr a little over two years later. Smith Jr managed to do something Kovalev could not do, sending Hopkins tumbling out of the ropes, “The Alien” being stopped in the eighth round.
Kovalev dominated at 175 pounds until November 2016, when he was beaten by Andre Ward. Kovalev lost the rematch with Ward, yet he, like Hopkins, kept going, with “Krusher” taking his turn fighting as an old man. Kovalev last fought in May of this year at age 41.
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